Anyone who is interested in digital innovations on the book market will occasionally benefit from looking beyond their own business domain. The music industry is an obvious example (read more here soon), and also the gaming industry – who would have thought this a few years ago? – as well as the Publishing House Calendar,…
Innovations in the digital field
“Online first” was a catchphrase in the media world. Is this now arriving in the book sector as well? More and more established publishing houses are setting up eBook imprints. More than half of the top 100 titles on the Kindle bestseller list are by self-published authors. The serial novel and smaller formats are enjoying a digital renaissance. Crowdfunding and joint authorship of texts are being tried and tested. Book publishers are setting up subsidiaries to release games and Apps. Distributors are launching flat-rate models for eBook reading. The digital transformation of the marketplace appears to be advancing at a fast pace. On the other hand, there are clear differences between the American and European book markets where digital growth has now significantly slowed down and the market share of electronic books is not nearly as big as predicted just two years ago.
What can be learned from the development of Scandinavian book markets for the Spanish and Italian market? Are there any opportunities for Polish or Czech writers in England or the US, if they self-translate their books and offer them on these markets? Does it change writing style, if authors increasingly become their own marketing managers on social media platforms?
All these and many other questions arise, if we think about innovations in the digital context and attempt to learn from each others’ different linguistic areas and cultures, as well as from our mistakes, yet above all also from what we now regularly call “best practice”.
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“Online-first” war ein Schlagwort in der Zeitungswelt. Kommt es nun auch im Buchbereich an? Immer mehr etablierte Verlage gründen ebook-Imprints. Mehr als die Hälfte der Top 100-Titel auf der Kindle-Bestsellerliste stammen von Selfpublishern. Der Serienroman und kleinere Formen erleben digital eine Renaissance. Crowdfunding und gemeinsames Verfassen von Texten werden ausprobiert. Buchverlage gründen Töchter um games und apps umzusetzen. Distributoren führen flat-rate-Modelle fürs elektronische Lesen ein. Die digitale Transformation des Marktes schreitet scheinbar unaufhaltsam voran. Doch andererseits gibt es deutliche Unterschiede zwischen dem amerikanischen und europäischen Buchmärkten, auf denen das digitale Wachstum sich inzwischen deutlich verlangsamt und der Marktanteil elektronischer Bücher noch längst nicht so groß ist, wie noch vor zwei Jahren vorausgesagt.
Was kann man aus der Entwicklung skandinavischer Buchmärkte für den spanischen oder italienischen lernen? Gibt es Chancen für polnische oder tschechische Autoren in England oder den USA, wenn sie ihr Werke selbst übersetzen und dort anbieten können? Verändert es die Art zu schreiben, wenn Autoren zunehmend in den sozialen Medien ihre eigenen Marketingmanager werden?
All diese – und noch viele andere Fragen stellen sich, wenn wir über Innovationen im digitalen Feld nachdenken und versuchen aus den unterschiedlichen Sprachräumen und Kulturen voneinander zu lernen, aus Fehlern, vor allem aber auch aus dem, was wir uns angewöhnt haben, “best-practice” zu nennen.
2015, Innovations in the digital field, Literary trends across Europe
Writing in Space / Die Schrift im Raum / L’Ecriture dans l’espace
by Beat Mazenauer •
In the 1990s, hyperfiction pointed new ways into the literary future. Mark Amerika’s Grammatron narrated a Golem story through short text particles, which were interlinked, and offered alternative narrative pathways to reading. Yet the trend was short-lived – the new narrative forms were barely acceptable for traditional literary criticism. Today, what is left is the…
2015, Innovations in the digital field
The Problem of E-Book Lending in Public Libraries
by Renata Zamida •
Recently, I returned from Riga, where the annual meeting of the European umbrella association of libraries took place. The NAPLE (National Authorities for Public Libraries in Europe) Forum, as a network of key players for public libraries in the EU member states and associated states, especially in the field of digitisation, is also active within…
2015, Innovations in the digital field
The paradox of digital transformation – the Hungarian case
by Laszlo Szabolcs •
A recent visitor to Budapest, the novelist Jonathan Franzen, believes that we are living in a “media-saturated, technology-crazed, apocalypse-haunted historical moment” which constantly gives one the feeling that the Krausian last days of humanity are near. Apocalypse notwithstanding, the American author—known for gluing off his laptop’s modem port so as not to let himself be…
2015, Comic and Graphic Novel, Innovations in the digital field
Who’s afraid of the e-Comic?/ Wer hat Angst vor dem E-Comic?
by Christian Gasser •
The “ebook” has been the slow-burner for years at book fairs. At Comic Festivals, of course, events are organized about the e-Comic, although the approach is comparatively reserved and tentative. Facing up to the digital revolution – sooner or later this will also impact on the comic – is not happening as consistently as it…
2015, Innovations in the digital field
Why does it feel so difficult to throw books away?
by Sam Sedgman •
After recently moving house, and being confronted box by box with just how much stuff I seem to own, I found no trouble in joyfully throwing plenty of it away. But not my books. Though I threw out clothes, rugs, games, crockery, pictures, I couldn’t bring myself to throw away a single book. I hold…
2015, Innovations in the digital field
Schweden und das E-Book/ Sweden and the ebook
by Karina Boehm •
A gradual approach to the digital reader age Let’s start with the bad news: during the past three years, sales figures for the entire Swedish book market have been in decline. Now for the good news: after a drop of 5.2 % in 2013 during the following year (2014) the decline was “only another” 3.5…
2015, Innovations in the digital field
Which books are hits on the web/ Welche Bücher das Web bewegen
by Henning Kornfeld •
The American doctor William Davis wouldn’t touch bread, biscuits or pizza with a barge pole: his mantra is that wheat is unhealthy and makes you fat. Davis’s message resonates in Germany: this February, no other work of non-fiction attracted so much excitement and debate among web users here as his book “Wheat Belly”. In the…
2015, Innovations in the digital field
Are you paying attention? How social networks are changing how we read
by Sam Sedgman •
Reading a book is refreshingly anti-social. It’s hard to read a book when someone is talking to you. It’s hard to read a book when you’re thinking about something else. It’s one of the few artforms we have where you have to pay attention the whole time, and do it, for the most part, by…
2015, Innovations in the digital field
Blooming deserts in need/ Die Not der blühenden Wüsten
by Walter Grond •
After Amazon’s takeover of the US website “Goodreads”, the owners of the Holzbrinck-financed online books website “Lovelybooks” reacted extremely calmly. This is a typical reaction in this sector. With growing ebook sales in German-speaking countries, the European group also sees good prospects for German language social reading offers. Whether that’s true or not. The message…